


A Bad Night

by Reily96



Series: Menphina Helps Those Who Help Themselves [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Estinien needs a hug, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, he's been through shit, i cant even bring myself to make shitposty tags, ship tag updated for ease of access but inaccurate! Not a WoL!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25970185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reily96/pseuds/Reily96
Summary: Sometimes, all you can do is help make a Very Bad Night into just a Bad Night.
Relationships: Estinien Wyrmblood/Original Character(s), Warrior of Light/Estinien Wyrmblood
Series: Menphina Helps Those Who Help Themselves [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1710415
Kudos: 8





	A Bad Night

Darkness.

He supposed it was only a matter of time before the darkest corners of his mind began to slowly drag him back. That his sleep had been dreamless for so long had put him into a false sense of security, allowed him think he was safe… But there was no safety. As he stared into the void, he knew what stared back at him. He felt it in the air around him, heavy with tension and dread and hate so thick a knife would struggle to cut through it.

And when it felt almost too much to bear, then there was searing brightness. Light and heat so strong he was forced to close his eyes, but the sound of crackling flames that accompanied the light filled him with dread. The snapping of wood unable to hold itself, the smell of all-consuming fire – fire so hot it consumed homes, sundered flesh, ground bones… He did not want to open his eyes.

But there was a way this always went. Despite his gritting teeth, the pain of knowing what lay just beyond his sight, it was like picking at a wound. He had to. His eyes would always open. And the fire would blow back at him, cinders brushing past his face as he yet again beheld the destruction of Ferndale upon that fateful day – of the home he longed to return to so dearly but would never see alive and bustling ever again.

A roar.

Grief. Anger. _Hatred_. It shook him to his very core; emotions that were not his own… but were.

He fell to his knees, the roar piercing through his skull until he heard and felt nothing but a millennium of wild anguish and loathing. The images of fire faded from his sight, but so racked was he with a torrent of emotions not his that he now shared in, it was hardly noticed.

Giant wings, beating back and forth in flight, unseen in the returned darkness… But he knew where they came from. He knew what stalked him in the dark – what would _always_ stalk him in the dark.

**_VENGEANCE._ **

The word felt like thousands of needles piercing through his skin at once, each pinprick magnifying the searing pain of the others, causing him to convulse as the vile wyrm’s thoughts continue to pour out.

**_ISHGARD WILL BURN. THOSE THAT YOU LOVE WILL BURN. BY YOUR HAND. I WILL RELCAIM YOU._ **

The great dragon stood before him now, red eyes glowing with their all too familiar malice in his skull. Pounding ancient draconic words of abject hatred into his mind. But he would not give in. He would not let himself be taken over by this creature again. Shakily, through the unbearable pain, he managed to stand himself up. The wyrm roared again, spreading out his great wings in a grand threat display. He stumbled, but did not fall. He refused.

**_YOU ARE ME._ **

The stabbing pains returned. He staggered forward. There in the darkness he saw it; tendrils along his arms. Angry red tendrils of aether, snaking from his forearm and shoulder to every bit of him. Panic came fast as he began to claw at his arms in a desperate attempt to the stop the spread – to keep his body.

**_MY AETHER FOREVER WILL TAINT YOU. I AM YOU. YOU ARE ME. GIVE IN. ISHGARD SHALL BURN BY YOUR HANDS, BY MY HANDS._ **

But he refused. He would claw it out of him – that tainted aether that was not his own. He would not give in, his body was his own. He refused. Refused.

Refused refused refused refused refused-

“-ien! Estinien! _Estinien_!” A familiar voice called his name. He stopped clawing at his arms.

“Estinien, please… It is all right now, please… Calm yourself…” A soft voice, worried… So familiar. So warm.

Through his heavy breathing he continued to stare at his arms. Red tendrils of aether… Were they there? He could see them, vibrantly glowing with their dripping malice… But were they real? Was he still within that darkness…?

A hand fell upon his shoulder – _the_ shoulder. The calloused hand of a warrior, yet still soft… still warm. Real.

Reality began to set in. The angry threads of aether were not there. He was in his home. In his bed. With Rumi. He looked over his shoulder at the worried face of the Miqo’te. She was real. She was alive. Words came from her lips in barely a whisper, “It is all right, Estinien… Everything will be okay.”

He pulled her into a crushing embrace, burying his head into her neck and taking in her comforting scent of leather and sawdust – a smell so very her, so very real. Unphased, she merely held him in return, though certainly with less force. She felt him shaking. Scared. The Keeper continued to whisper words of comfort, stroking his hair, “He is not here, my love. Nidhogg is no more…”

“I hear the wyrm even now… Even now he threatens to take control…”

Rumi’s heart ached when she heard him say the words. Estinien Wyrmblood, ever so defiant and strong… sounding so small and gripping her so tightly, as if she was the last thing tethering him to the star. “That shade is no more. Do nyat listen to it. I am here. I am real.” And she continued to whisper him what little words of comfort she could offer, she felt him shudder. The silent sobs of a man who’d spent far too long haunted.

This was not the first time this had happened. Nor would it be the last. She had no illusions that her presence could “fix” the horrors that hid within the depths of his mind. She too suffered such things, albeit to lesser degrees. The fear that Nidhogg’s destruction by the Warrior of Light was merely a dream, that Estinien was still so far away and possessed by a specter of hatred. Fears that would never quite leave her mind yet could be comforted by the reality of his merely being present.

But his were different, the lingering traces of all that was the great wyrm still stinging at him. The memories of a family lost, of friends lost, of a desire for vengeance all combined with the memories and feelings of wyrm’s own losses and hatreds. A reminder of how similar the two had been, why he had been such an ideal vessel… It would never leave him. And in times like these, at the very least she could help make a Very Bad Night into just a Bad Night. To hold him, to assure him, to grieve with him. She would be with him through the worst of it, this she had promised… and she would keep to it. For all of his strength and deeds, after all, he was still just a man.

**Author's Note:**

> I've said it once, I'll say it again: Estinien has been through shit, has PTSD, and like... I dunno, I feel it needs to be addressed a bit more often than it does. You don't just shrug off what he's been through. There's a whole lot of WoL has trauma going around, which they do, definitely... But can't forget he does too. A lot of FFXIV characters do, and they also deserve hugs. Anyways, that was just my two cents.
> 
> Anyways, this marks the last of the plot bunnies I had any intention of writing out for these two. So this should be the last (for now) of my little self-indulgent series. See ya next time, perhaps with something actually about my WoL.


End file.
